A tale of a simpler time: bored youngsters, spray paint and a dare

The story began as many such legends do -- three high school football players, a small-town ice cream shop and a 1964 Friday night. It was muggy; they were bored and so decided to look for a little bit of trouble.

View full sizeEllis Lucia, The Times-PicayuneThe story of how "CHS 64" appeared on the overpass that night some five decades ago has become a popular plot line for local lore.

They don't remember now, 47 years later, exactly how their scheme took shape. One recalls eyeing the bridge that carries U.S. 190 over Boston Street and the Bogue Falaya River. All they needed, they decided, was a can of paint, a rope and a kid small enough and stupid enough to drop down over the ledge.

The story of how "CHS 64" appeared on the overpass that night some five decades ago has become a popular plot line for local lore. The tales are many and varied -- from rival high school students painting the message to incriminate their Covington High enemies to a teenager dangling by his ankle over cars speeding below.

"They held a little old tiny feller upside down by his feet," said Covington City Councilman Lee Alexius, who graduated from St. Paul's School in Covington the year before. "At least that's the story I've been told ever since 1964."

The graffiti, or perhaps the mystery behind it, has become so beloved that a picture of it appears on the Shades of Covington poster hanging in living rooms and government buildings all over town, including the police chief's office.

"In all these years, it never went away, they never painted over it for whatever reason -- maybe they didn't want to," said David Barfield, a local photographer who created the poster. "It became an iconic part of Covington; the legend of it grew a life of its own."

No one, for 47 years, has called the state to complain of it.

"We remove graffiti as we are made aware of it and as scheduling permits," said Amber Leach, spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation and Development. "Unfortunately, I do not have much information on the CHS 64 tag as our district was unaware of its existence and has not received any complaints over the years."

'I have a dream'

The three Covington High School football players were uninterested in making history that May night, just before they graduated and went their separate ways -- some to college, some to war.

Around them, the world was thundering, changing.

Their senior year began as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I have a dream" speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Before their holiday break, President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. In the weeks and months that followed, Beatlemania was born, and America's involvement in the Vietnam War began to escalate.

In May 1964, as the Freedom Summer was beginning nearby in Mississippi, the boys and their classmates were at the Dairy King, an ice cream shop that sat where Advance Auto Parts does today at the beginning of Boston Street. It was a popular hangout in those last gasps of a more innocent time, when there was rarely meanness in teenage trouble-making.

"We were full of ourselves that night, celebrating just like any other teenager," said one of the culprits, described by a friend as the ringleader. "And I'd be willing to bet there was a dare somewhere in there."

No names, please

He asked to remain unnamed for fear of impressionable grandchildren and criminal charges, despite assurances that the statute of limitations on criminal mischief ran out 46 years ago.

"I have grown children and grandchildren and I've convinced them that I was not a party to the shenanigans on that bridge," said another, who owns a real estate business out of state. "Their daddy was never doing silly things. I'm sticking with my story that I wasn't there that night."

Just one of the football players, Leon Vergez, who still lives on the outskirts of Covington, said he didn't mind attaching his name to the prank.

They recruited a smaller guy at the Dairy King and, together, the four of them drove to a hardware store that belonged to one of their classmate's parents, Vergez said. The store owner's son helped them pirate their supplies: a ski rope and a can of spray paint.

"Believe it or not, none of us had been drinking," Vergez said.

'Like a pinata'

They returned to the overpass late, long after the sleepy town of Covington had gone to bed. It was dark and they were giddy. Vergez looped one end of the rope around his waist and they engineered a harness at the other, tying the little guy around his legs and his chest.

The ballplayers -- Vergez manning the end and the other two at his sides -- hoisted him over the ledge, right-side up and spray paint in hand.

At first, they let him drop too far. The boy dangled there "like a piñata," as one described the scene.

"That was the funniest thing to us that night," he said.

He was just a few inches from the ground, swinging and cursing and shouting for them to pull him back up.

The three on the bridge heaved him up. The boy flailing from the end of the rope realized that the task before him was somewhat more daunting than they'd planned. The concrete underside was recessed several feet from the ledge and he could not reach it simply dangling there. He instructed the boys on top to swing him.

He took out the paint, waited until he swung far enough inward and painted the "C." He kicked off the ledge, swung up and back down for the "H" then again for the "S." After the 6 and the 4, the boys on top pulled him back to the bridge.

It all took probably 15 minutes, Vergez recalls. They were terrified they'd be caught and scrambled to the car.

The usual suspects

By morning, the news was all over town. They were down at the river when one father arrived "with a rather unhappy look on his face."

They were, for good reason, the usual suspects.

"You name it, and our little group was probably in on it," one said. "But it was just innocent fun."

They'd spray painted the water tower, drunk a beer or two, and, in another legendary prank, launched a friend's Volkswagen down the Tchefuncte River.

And so their high school principal who "had no sense of humor," according to the boys, tracked them down with threats of arrest and expulsion. The next few days have become known to them as "the little 1964 stalemate" that pitted the principal against the teenage vandals who swore they knew nothing about the antics on the underside of that overpass.

"At the end of the story, we all graduated," one said. "But the principal did not enjoy shaking hands with some of the 1964 graduates. I've got a picture; he was shaking my hand with a scowl on his face."

Some of the boys, now businessmen and grandfathers, are still friends. One was the best man in another's recent wedding. They plan trips together around LSU football games.

One, who has told the story of CHS 64 to his family, received a framed picture of the bridge from his daughter last Christmas. It sits on the bookcase in his Baton Rouge office.

"I'm looking at it right now," he said. "I guess it's something you look back on fondly -- the good ol' days, high school. By now it's a landmark. But it was just a funny little thing at the time."

Vergez, too, said that every time he drives his truck under that bridge, he remembers a time when the world was simple. A year later, he was sent to Vietnam, still a boy, and came home years later a man -- so mean and hardened it took him 20 years to speak of it.

"But I still get tickled by that sign," he said. "It brings back really sweet memories of a kind, funny world before the world wasn't kind and funny anymore."